Thank You for the gaming moments...

[Rowyne]

Instanced content, shards that separate players from each other (for those who don't know, it's an instance of the town or area you're in), companions to aid in solo game play, LINEAR progression (planets for each level range . . .), useless crafting since everything you want is handed to you in dungeons...
I've no need to go on. This is the same crap that has been popping up in games. Fortunately for this game, Bioware was at the mound; gracing us with their story telling.

So you feel that MMOs are removing too much of the multiplayer aspect?

While I respect that, I'm also an advocate for giving people the option of playing the way they like. And game designers are learning that, too. Not just because WoW peaked at 12 million subscribers by finally making an MMO fully accessible. But look at games like pre-Abyssea FFXI. You couldn't progress without the help of five other people. And that's fine to have certain aspects of a game that way. But the entire game? You'll turn away a lot of players due to frustration in a market where they now have choices.

MMOs not only have to allow for some solo content to make the solo & casual crowd happy, but to give those who want group content something to do when they can't find groups.

SW:TOR may have solo aspects, but it also encourages group play more than you might think. Along with the quests you level with are thrown in flashpoints and heroics, which are group instances. I constantly see people in general chat LFG or LFM for them (which means people are partying up). Plus, if you group up with others for their class quests, you get to experience their story, as well. My husband and I have been duoing the whole way (he's a Jedi Knight, I'm a Jedi Consular) and it's like playing twice the game. Companions do aid in combat, but they can't take the place of a real player. They don't always make the best choices and mine is pretty squishy for a tank. Plus, they're also like a squire. They sell your grey vendor trash and you send them on crafting missions. The class quests are linear progression, but so are the main scenario quests in FFXIV. Once you get your ship (which is sooner than getting your GC chocobo), you can go anywhere in the galaxy you like.

I can't say for sure how 'meaningless' the crafting is since I'm still low level, but if it turns out to be like WoW, I will be a bit disappointed. I always felt like Aion hit the sweet spot. You still got good drops out of instances, but crafted gear was really meaningful. I remember how painfully expensive armorsmithing was, and praying you'd proc those HQs. Not only were the stats better, but the armor looked different, which told everyone it was high quality.

Also, one thing I greatly respect SW:TOR for is that they have officially stated they have no plans for a cross-world dungeon finder (a la WoW). Reason being they want to foster a good sense of community within each server. If you've never played WoW and don't know what I'm talking about, just Google any number of articles that cite the cross-realm dungeon finder as the single biggest downfall of the community. When first implemented, the dungeon finder placed five random people from servers in your region together. You pick your role, and then it groups together one tank, one healer, and three DPS. It was very rare you ever saw anyone from your server in a random group. And in a community as gigantic as WoW, you quickly learn that chances are slim you will ever play with these people again (i.e. your reputation means nothing). So internet anonymity kicks in and no one really feels obligated to be a decent human being. Combine that with how tightly tuned and unforgiving Cataclysm heroics were, you had a frustrated community that would not tolerate mistakes. DPS stands in the fire and causes a wipe, point fingers, boot the healer. The tank is wearing a crappy chestpiece, gearscore is low, boot them too. Still can't wrap your head around it? Imagine running dungeons with random groups of people on these forums.

They later changed it so that it would prioritize putting people together from your own server, but by then, the damage had already been done.

It makes me worried that Yoshi-P wants to implement a cross-server instance tool.

Whatever makes the green backs. Become too "innovative" and you end up with the heap that was FF14 at launch.

That's no kidding. Ever watch someone open a present they clearly didn't like and try to cover it up by saying, "Oh, that's different..." Like SE admitted, sometimes being unique for the sake of being unique is not a good idea.

Take the ideas that are proven to work, improve upon them, introduce something new. Changing the entire formula leads to disasters like New Coke.

[Soralis]

i agree with jennestia, it is working well like that, and gramul don't base your experience on the game by other people, go and play it yourself, wow is a crap compared to swtor, even with ff14, you can't even compare it anymore, wow is over!

[Baxter]

lol@thisthreadstillbeingopen. I thought this was ffxiv forums, not swtor review